Peasant and Chef: The Limits of Peruvian Gastro-Fascism, 1994-2012

The son of the Bourgeoisie

In 1994, in the context of privatization-based, neoliberal economic program within an increasingly authoritarian regime, a 27-year old Peruvian, son of a prominent politician, returned to the country after several years of elite education in Madrid and Paris. There he proceeded to open a French restaurant — along with a bakery expert, his German wife — with funds raised by family and a handful of unknown investors. Lima, the capital city of Peru, was then the core of a country on the verge of a complete meltdown. A period of political violence that brought together state and insurgent terrorism had ravaged the entire country, particularly the rural region and the highlands, heavily affecting the non-Spanish-speaking population, and resulting in the death of approximately seventy thousand Peruvians. On top of that, the seemingly democratic administrations that Peru had experienced in the previous decade had brought a high level of political and civil disarray, to the extent of discrediting democracy and political parties, and hence paving the way for political authoritarianism in unforeseen ways. In sum, the city that welcomed this young Peruvian chef — Gastón Acurio — was far from being the pretentious, so-called cosmopolitan and progressive city that now Lima claims to be.

Not long after opening the restaurant, Acurio noticed that he had pursued the wrong strategy. Peru was no longer the oligarchic and semi-feudal country in which his father — once-senator by the center-right Acción Popular, Gastón Acurio Velarde — had amassed a fortune, a country in which European flavors and sophisticated practices were appreciated at all costs. As a child who grew up visiting foreign embassies and enjoying sushi while the rest of the country went through food shortages, and as a young man who was privileged enough to be sent to law school in Europe while the country was melting down, Acurio saw in French cuisine the logical outcome of his professional training as a chef. Reality, however, struck him in the face.

Acurio and his wife quickly realized that in spite of the dramatic changes the country had experienced since the years of the military government, one thing had remained intact and could be exploited: Peruvians, poor and rich alike, were delighted by Peruvian flavors. Thus, their restaurant — Astrid & Gastón — progressively abandoned its Francophilia and increasingly adopted Peruvian ingredients on the menu. This could open the door to a new takeoff for Acurio as chef and businessman. There were moments of uncertainty, as Acurio himself once confessed. Why would rich Peruvians pay the same price for a Coq au Vin as for a local Estofado? Then, Acurio realized the necessity of conjuring up an ideology that could legitimize such a comparison. Probably familiarized with the history and nature of French cuisine, its reinvention after 1789, and its reincarnation as a source of national pride, Acurio started to undertake one of the most subtle processes of rhetorical, nationalist engineering of contemporary history: the creation of the idea of Peruvian cuisine. By the dawn of the twenty-first century, Peruvian cuisine had become an apparatus that embraced fascist modes and practices, which created a complex system of symbols and codes, wrote down manuals of indoctrination to be worshipped as sacred, and mobilized the masses to organize them into corporate categories, placing the cult of Peruvian ingredients at the center.

Gastón Acurio mingles with a group of campesinos

I decided to start this essay about Peruvian Gastro-Fascism — a concept that I will explain in detail in the following lines — mainly because Acurio is widely acclaimed as the founding father of the current culinary boom in Peru. In years to come, as the recent cuisine-based nation-making process unfolds and becomes more historizable, the return of Acurio and the foundation of Astrid & Gastón will be regarded as the watershed event of this revival of potato-based Peruvian-ness. I wish only to contextualize the foundation of this new Shangri-La of Peruvian cuisine, and others can come in after me who will do a better job of filling in any remaining holes.

What is Peruvian Gastro-Fascism?

When referring to Fascism, most people associate the term with the immediate historical examples of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. I must emphasize, though, that Fascism is a much larger phenomenon, one which presents a certain definite way of understanding the world. A few lines ago, I advanced some of the fundamental aspects of Peruvian Gastro-Fascism, but let me be blatantly clear: Fascism implies political disassociation, inter-class societal organization, corporate division of the society, triumph of the will over reason, and strong nationalist sentiments. Based on this simple outline, I can reveal the central characteristics of current Peruvian gastronomic ideology and assert its Fascistic nature.

Peruvian cuisine, as Acurio himself has constantly declared, has no political affiliation. In an interview published in 2010, Acurio was asked whether Peruvian cuisine was an inherently leftist project, given its inclusive nature. Acurio responded that it was neither leftist nor rightist, but rather that it was the result of an association between the “individual’s will” and the “state”.1 Although Acurio has been seen numerous times next to politicians and statesmen, he has emphasized over and over again his reluctance to involve himself directly in politics, and his confidence in leaving cuisine an apolitical subject.

In 2008, Acurio began to promote one of his greatest projects, Mistura, a culinary festival held once a year in Lima, in which — according to him — “social classes would be forgotten.”2 Acurio and other shining stars of the gastronomic boom have consistently portrayed Peruvian cuisine as a social force capable of erasing class divisions. Upon entering this new world presented by Mistura, the citizen would “forget his social differences, his problems, and would dedicate himself to the celebration of this great event that is our Peruvian cuisine.”

Mistura essentializes Peruvianness, packs it in a plastic bowl, and presents a harmonious representation of an otherwise conflictive country

In Acurio’s world without social classes, there is nonetheless an organic social corps, a body composed of compartments by which all the actors of the culinary boom are defined. The sacred communion of chef, peasant, and gourmand — all attendees of Acurio’s mental banquet — best illustrates this wily body politic. The pivotal goal of Acurio’s entire career has been to forge an alliance between the first two.3 The gourmand encompasses a category in itself, as the purchasing power of Peruvians tends to increase and the internal market continues to expand. Other minor participants include “entrepreneurs, waiters, barmans, juice-makers”4 and several others. Peruvian cuisine as a category occupies the very center of this schema; it is the body’s beating heart. The cult of the nation is replaced by the cult of the pot, and no one is left aside from this compartmentalization.

In this fantastical world of corporatism without classes, concrete economic conditions mean next to nothing. Everything depends, instead, on the will of the subject. “Gastronomy,” Acurio has explained, “cultivates entrepreneurial hunger.”5 Peruvian entrepreneurship, or will, is able to overcome all adversities, no matter how unreasonable the environment surrounding the subject is. However, this entrepreneurship must be strongly linked with the iron rationality of the state, and it is this close association that ultimately relegates reason to a lesser position than will.

And finally, we come to the strong nationalist sentiments. This part deserves an essay of its own, and I think it is the most obvious one. Anyone familiar with the Peruvian culinary boom knows (and often repeats) the claims that Peruvian cuisine is the best of the world. Acurio and endless others have persistently called for conquering the world with a Peruvian ceviche. Those who disagree with the enthronement of huancaína sauce are condemned to rhetorical ostracism, as well as to all sorts of verbal attacks and psychological warfare. Some advertisements of Peruvian products have gone as far as to say that those who do not like ceviche should not hold Peruvian citizenship. Many would actually take such an assertion seriously. This ideology surrounding Peruvian cuisine is increasingly becoming a “state truth”, one that is able — probably for the first time — to promote a sentiment of social pax. In a country in which the rate of malnutrition among poor children is such a prevailing problem, having the state investing in gourmet, culinary projects is simply absurd. It, however, is probably just another aspect of Fascism.

Ultimately, Acurio wants Peruvian cuisine to be to the twenty-first century what French cuisine was to the nineteenth, and McDonalds to the twentieth. If the last two were thesis and antithesis, the outcome — meaning Acurio’s gastronomy — as any other historical synthesis will be a hybrid of both, and just imagining the combination of nationalism and assembly lines is scary for a country struggling over social and racial equality. A quick survey of Acurio’s mass projects reveals his failed Pasquale Hermanos, a fast-food sandwich restaurant where fries servings are weighed (a ridiculous practice in a country in which potato production is pivotal) and his newly minted Papachos.

Peasant and Chef

On November 30, 2012, upon returning from a potato festival, four people died in a car accident in the highways of Huanta, Ayacucho. Three of them were Lima-based chefs: Jason Nanka, Ivan Kisic, and Lorena Valdivia. One of them, an Ayacucho peasant and community leader, María Huamaní, remains often unmentioned or else addressed as “the peasant” who was traveling with the widely acclaimed chefs. While the losses of Nanka, Kisic, and Valdivia are tragic and deeply mourned, it is important to highlight the blatant racism at stake when referring to María Huamaní. Why is her life seemingly worth less than those of the other three chefs?

Three chefs and a campesina. The life of a person from the highlands persists to be worth less than a person from Lima.

Peru is undeniably a racist country, and this racism is a historical source of tension that bloodily sprang forth during the turmoil of the period of political violence (1980-2000). Although this period ravaged the countryside as soon as the country moved back to a democratic administration in 1980, the outcome of the violence remained largely ignored by the media and civil society in Lima. Only very late into the process, by 1992, once the conflict was moving towards the capital and striking wealthy neighborhoods, did the conflagration reach notoriety among Lima residents. The final body count of this civil strife, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Comission, was close to seventy thousand people. Of them, the vast majority did not have Spanish as their mother tongue. We thought we had healed from this social convulsion, and had exorcised our collective demons. Peruvian culinary discourse seemed to be the flag of this new Peru.

In spite of its inclusionary posturing, we now see the limits of the encompassing nature of this culinary rhetoric. White elites are chefs, worthy of attention, whose losses are deeply tragic. Highland people — those who have been condemned to a social abyss where they have no legal visibility, let alone primary rights — are “cooks” at best, and often simply “campesinos”. Acurio, the once-prophet of modern gourmet society, has had to call the masses to common sense. He had to do so when the masses attacked a dissident of Gastro-Fascism — Peruvian novelist Iván Thays — who had declared that Peruvian food was indigestible. Now he has to bring the hordes back to their toes and reassert the value of Huamaní. Yet Acurio is no longer the leader. No one is. This Gastro-Fascism has spun out of control. It belongs to the mass, and the mass — the racist Peruvian mass — has now added the element of pride. If tomorrow there were slaves on sale in the malls and department stores of Lima, people would only be irritated about the price. No other objections or reservations would be necessary. Daunting years lie ahead for Peru.

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I found this article fascinating and from the comments I see it touched a nerve (or nerves, rather). I was born in Peru more than half a century ago but raised in California. I read about the big flap that Ivan Thays caused simply because he found some Peruvian dishes indigestible. From the reaction to this “scandal” one would have thought the author did something far worse than state an opinion which happens to run counter to the popular view. I think some of the readers got hung up on your calling this view — where no one can dare challenge or criticize Peruvian cuisine — gastro fascism, but I think it’s appropriate. As I was reading about the Thays brouhaha, I remember thinking it was rather pathetic that national pride (in food, anyway) was so easily bruised and insulted.
I have also noticed that accusations of being resentful and/or envious are hurled at anyone complaining or commenting on anything, even if it’s a legitimate gripe. How can open and honest discussion take place in this environment? Also, I find the common belief that “The worst enemy of a Peruvian is another Peruvian” to be sad beyond words.

Javier,
I have to acknowledge your essay has been well developed regarding the reasons and points you have mentioned above.As an essay it gives your personal outlooking and shows us how you see things from your perspective.Indeed,I guess you’re not currently dwelling here in Peru,thus it’s probably easier for you to open up a bunch of issues we,Peruvians,know,but still remain blind or reluctant to talk about.Although,at first I had the preconception that because of the title something bad would be uncovered,I think that there are still some things which are true,as well as others which are controversial.You have touched a terrain in which different people have felt sort of harmed.On the one hand,one can have the message that people who are in a better status quo are portrayed as the villain of the movie,in this case you mentioned Gaston as the one taking advantage of our growing gastronomy ,and the rest of us taking the role of the victims.Poor,us! I don’t want to sound sarcastics,but let’s face our reality.We live in a country is which the growing economy doesn’t reach the all twenty six million people as we may wish.On top of that just a few people dare to take an active role in our society,and Gaston has been one of them with his entreprenurial skills,though that is not enough.On the other hand,I don’t think it’s appropriate to unshakeably state the title as a general truth taking the principles of Fascism.Perhaps that was a little weak.However you supported your reasons ,there is a sense of having greatly exaggerated in the development of your essay.Fortunately,only those who have taken the chance to analyse it thoroughly may understand that your aim is to boost a sentiment of discussion and have further analysis. Indeed,thanks to this via I guess some people have been able to get through you and you are still welcoming comments.
Laidi Vanessa Oroya Porras.
Ps Some people disagree with you for using English.Hey! What’s wrong,people? Me encanta mi lengua materna,pero vivimos en un mundo globalizado y el Inglés es una lengua franca.
( Teacher of English)

Oh, somebody discovered Peruvians are racist, and sexist, and “age-ist”. And we normally don’t acknowledge it. Plus, we hate those who succeed, at whatever (witness Rosario Ponce, condemned by the media because she “survived”)

And yet, we are survivors. People in Peru have survived so many disasters and have been able to grow and keep their warmth and generosity in spite of…(fill in the blank)

Just pointing out that we are irrational in our love of Peruvian food (food in general, I should say) doesn’t advance the difficult answer to the poignant question of the 21st century: where do we get the inspiration to use the enormous amount of energy that has rescued this country from implosion to build a modern, democratic, equitable society? for women, men, Indians, mixed blood, foreigners, people with disabilities and even resentful old school leftists!

We need to collectively look for ways to improve our education, empower all people and build mechanisms to effectively diminish inequities-. In the meantime, it doesn’t hurt to be proud of our food, and to look around – and inside- and discover other very positive features of men and women in this difficult but beautiful country.

Sorry Javier, but I just dont see the problem with The State trying to give Peru a better face to the world. I have seen and talked to so many Peruvians who are truly proud of their country and their food…is that a bad thing? In the 90’s, they were ashamed, terrorism and corruption were controlling and ruining everything. Of course there is still corruption, but you find that in any society– no matter how developed.

And damning the movement because of inherent racism? Have you spent and time in the Southern USA? Racism is a terrible fabric of I would say every modern society. But that doesnt make the Gaston Acurios of the world bad people for promoting a brand and becoming successful. Good for him! I hope kids look up to him and work really hard to be successful too.

About the first part, “the son of the bourgeois”; i feel that there´s a bad intention and not a single real argument for this “short bio” of Acurio´s roots. The middle of the 90´was the best time for doing business in Perú. Even realizing that the core problems (social, racial struggles) were far from surpassed (and evidently still are), an economic shift and international trust in peruvian economy were integrating. He was a businessman, in a time of business, and that’s all (he has never been a real talented cook, but a very clever businessman). Your short note in Acurio´s lineage seems to imply that, if for some reason he would have been of modest past, the culinary phenomena in Perú would be at least different. In thank i dont think so, even i think it could have been worst (in this country things seems can be always worst, not better; maybe is just my pessimism).

About the gastro-fascist side of the culinary boom, it could be better labeled as a gastro-communist party, after all what you deem as fascist axioms suit better for communist manifesto “political disassociation, inter-class societal organization, corporate division of the society, triumph of the will over reason, and strong nationalist sentiments.” This share a lot with communism, and about inter-class, maybe that’s your lecture, but in Acurio´s words “social classes would be forgotten.” That´s a pretty straight forward communist utopia. So, what is lying under the capitalist and privates administration of festivals like Mistura, is a socialist political will. Dont get me wrong, im not defending the status quo and even less praising capitalism. What im trying to point is that this phenomena could be better understood if we lecture it as a socialist agenda, embracing capitalists tools. What with have is -pardon the peruvian food metaphor-, a “lomo saltado” or “chainfainita”; some kind of political correct agenda (socialist utopia), doing everything wrong with the tools at hand: capitalism.

From that point on we can have a different lecture of events like the tragedy of the car accident in Ayacucho. “The bourgeois” would have never been traveling with “the peasant”, in other times, or in other kind of phenomena. They were traveling together cause that’s the discourse of the culinary phenomena in Perú: forget the differences, they say. But the differences pop up in our face when the political correct discourse get to the front pages of the newspaper. You end your article with a poignant remark: “[about the leader of the movement] It belongs to the mass, and the mass — the racist Peruvian mass — has now added the element of pride.” I wish you could clarify to whom you refer when you say “the mass”; your article is about social struggle and differences, and you close it with a strange quote for this kind. “The mass” is the Asia beach wealthy people? (less than 2% of the population), it is “the peasants”? it is everyone?.

What i share with your reflection is that this country is a very, very racist country, but i laugh when people say that racism happens mainly in Lima, when newspaper and social networks like facebook, with his political correct young boys and ladies posts about some racist incident in Larcomar or something similar. Rapidly i know that these young people have never, ever, been inside the country. I have been it at least 100 rural small towns. I have never seen more racism in Lima than in this towns. Communities hates each other, but this, odd as it seems (mainly because Lima people just care about what happens in Lima), never get to the front pages.

Huamanís picture -as well as Kisic’s- were in last saturdays Somos magazine, one of the most read publications in Perú. They didnt include pictures of Nanka or valdivida. are you going to write an article about that too? ;)

Two elements distort this analisis. First, the conception that someone’s intentions are evil just because he comes from a wealthy family (that kind of social determinism is also pretty comon in Perú). Second, to base your conclusion on a single headline by a particular and disoriented journalist form Caretas magazine. In certain degree you fall for it too: you fail to mention that Huamani was also a prestigious chef like the three others.

About the deaths of the chefs and media coverage: In fact, its not a matter of racism. The problem is María Huamani was not famous at the time of her death. She wasnt part of the pop side of peruvian gastronomic boom. Its not that “her life is seemingly worth less than those of the other three chefs”. Actually, she wasnt well known and thats all. If you search in google, you will find one or two references about her. On the other hand, if you search for Ivan, Lorena or Jason, you will get plenty of results. Consequently, media reacted to the death of the famous chefs because that would earn them more attention. It would have been the same if the fourth person in that car was an unknown male american tourist. (Im pretty sure maria elena cornejo wouldnt have titled her article “Cuatro grandes chicos” and he would remain as “the tourist”). Would you call that racism against the “gringo”?
Furthermore, majority of people doesnt even know another person survived the accident (kisic’s assistant, Percy Arevalo). That wasnt on media and that definitely doesnt mean they considered his life to be less important. Racism is real but in this case in particular, thats not the real problem.
PS: I agree with the rest of your post. But, seriously, you should reconsider your interpretation about the accident and its media coverage.

Thanks for the suggestion about reinterpreting media coverage, Gerson. I still believe Huamaní’s death has remained largely invisible, and exploring the reasons of this invisibility is a question worth addressing. She may have been less known in Lima, but surely people from Huanta knew her more than Kisic, Nanka, and Valdivia. I didn’t know about Arévalo. Hope he hasn’t experienced serious injuries, and gets better soon. Finally, about your gringo analogy: sometimes coverage about gringos lost while trekking in the Cordillera Blanca are far more extensive and detailed than deaths produced by “friaje” in the southern altiplano.

People from Huanta mourned Huamani’s death, not the others’. http://diariocorreo.pe/ultimas/noticias/2502118/dan-ultimo-adios-a-cocinera-ayacuchana-maria
Is that inverted racism? I think it’s only she was well known there, unlike the others. It’s certainly a complex matter. Come to think of it, I must admit Maria elena cornejo’s article was racist. At the time she wrote it, we all knew who Maria Huamani was. But she made her choice and decided to call her “the peasant”. However, I still think media’s first reaction was motivated by the desire of attention, rather than racism. And about gringos lost while trekking, it happens usually, almost every year. Most of the time, their deaths are barely mentioned in newspapers. Maybe someone received a bit more attention, but not the majority of them.
Nevertheless, as you say, it’s important to explore this kind of matters. Thanks for your answer.

I wonder how many of the millions of people in Lima had actually heard of any of the four cooks who died in that horrible accident? They were not exactly household names, they were not as well-known and easily recognizable as Gaston himself or, just for comparison, any of the actors in “Al fondo hay sitio”. Media perception and coverage can be quite different from reality, and it happens that smaller, often elite groups believe that their own world-view, their own perceptions of who or what is important, represents what is universal.
And yes, I do believe there was racism, but not an obvious, in-your-face racism meant to denigrate and offend, but a naturalized, subtle racism that is so embedded in the minds of many limenos, especially upper-class limenos, that they do not even realize it. After all, how many upper class, white people normally interact on an everyday basis with andean people as equals, as colleagues, as friends, as partners? perhaps ivan, lorena and jason did see maria as a fellow cook, as a friend, as a colleague, because they had likely interacted with her enough to see past her ethnicity and origin. However, the problem with racism is that it means that we identify and perceive people mainly by their ethnicity, skin colour and associated stereptypes, rather than see them as fellows. What Cornejo’s headline clearly states is that she sees Maria Huamani above all as an “other”, as someone different and alien from her and from the other three, cooks, and identifies her as a campesina – I do not know if maria huamani chose to identify herself in public as a campesina. Cornejo, in that headline, sees only the skin colour and the andean origin, and brands her as such, while not mentioning that she was also a cook. That is what I find troublesome about the headline.

I dont know how many of the millions of people in Lima had heard about them, but people from media certainly had, (Gaston himself had interviewed Lorena and Jason not so much time ago). So, even if they werent Gaston or Ricolás, that’s the reason media focused on those deaths. First reports spoke about an unidentified woman named maria, but at that moment no one could have undoubtly affirmed who she was. Those who covered the accident in the first moment, were just acting based on their own current knowledge, while triying to get more information from the police. On the other hand, those who kept invisibilizing Maria Huamani’s death after some days, when it was clearly stated who she was, were racists (subtle, not the in-your-face kind). We agree on that.
And yes, we think the same about Maria Elena Cornejo’s article, as I noted before.

Thanks for the reply, Luciana. disagreeing with portions of or all the text is wholeheartedly welcome. My hope is to open a conversation about the nature of the culinary discourse, without being considered a hater or an anti-Peruvian person (among other things because I am indeed Peruvian). Unfortunately, those who endorse culinary nationalism seem to be quite hesitant to even discuss these issues, and often react viscerally to the possibility. I think it’s useful to problematize what we consume as commercial, increasingly-state sponsored propaganda about this “new Peru”.

Although I don’t agree with some parts, I must say this post is mainly a shocking true, and one that almost no one here (Peru) dares to speak out loud. I always thought that, even if the food is really good, it is a overrated subject and that there are more important things to worry about. They say that no matter your social status, in Peru you always have delicious food to eat. But those who say that (and it’s a surprisingly large number of people) are forgetting, or just don´t want to see, all those people who can´t even have a healthy meal every day. The society is trying to cover up all its problems with this “peruvian food revolution”, instead of really making something to fix them. Oh, and by the way, the so called event where all peruvians can meet and relate to each other without differences, “Mistura”, charges more for the entrance than what lot of people can afford. It is true that the economy is now better, but I think everybody is making a mistake by thinking we leave in an utopian country just because we have Machu Picchu, Pisco Sour and some good food. But sure, I still love my country, with flaws and everything.

[…] cuisine and, above all, about the role chef Gastón Acurio has in it. According to its author, Peasant and Chef: The Limits of Peruvian Gastro-Fascism, 1994-2012 is an attempt to “contextualize the foundation of this new Shangri-La of Peruvian cuisine, so […]

[…] cuisine and, above all, about the role chef Gastón Acurio has in it. According to its author, Peasant and Chef: The Limits of Peruvian Gastro-Fascism, 1994-2012 is an attempt to “contextualize the foundation of this new Shangri-La of Peruvian cuisine, so […]